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Ratiocination

Reading Roundup 2006


I read a lot in 2005 and compiled a list of my favorite texts; I here do the same for 2006. Despite having begun graduate studies this fall, this list is much shorter than the last. It seems that I read and remembered much less (or I was subject to a rather poor selection of texts!). But here are four good books, or at least, ones I enjoyed reading this year:

• Knowledge and Lotteries, by John Hawthorne. There is little doubt, I think, that Hawthorne is one of the best youngish philosophers alive today. And this is a fine example of his work. The book is well-researched, contains many novel insights, and genuinely moves forward several debates in epistemology. In particular, I liked the chapter on epistemic closure. My review of the book is here.

• Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. Somehow I didn't appreciate the Ender books when I first read them a few years back. But that's changed now. These books are of course great fun to read, but they're also quite interesting. In particular, Card masterfully integrates mystery and the ethical life into his stories. The thought life of his creatures of fiction centers around the moral dilemmas they find themselves in and the effects of the same. I'd guess that Card is something of a virtue theorist, given his emphasis on how decisions shape character and on the relevance of moral exemplars to the psychology of his creatures.

• Objects and Persons, by Trenton Merricks. A delightful study in metaphysics, especially for the refreshing and clear writing. Merricks presses a novel argument for eliminativism about material objects (except for us humans!) and covers many interesting issues in the process. Further comments on the book here.

• Gender Basics, edited by Anne Minas. Desk copies of textbooks tend to randomly show up in the philosophy department lounge at Notre Dame and that's how I ran into this volume. This book contains many interesting essays on identity, gender, sexuality, race, and feminism. Given the variety of contributors, the quality is a little uneven, but the highlights are well worth reading and reflecting on. I was also pleased to see that Robert Nozick's fascinating meditations on love and sexuality (from The Examined Life) made it into this volume.

Elusive Knowledge


When I saw the title of this article, "50 Things We Know Now (That We Didn't Know This Time Last Year)," I was hopeful. But alas, no philosophical theses made the list. But perhaps a few should. Any ideas?

Economics and Classical Liberalism


The title of this post asks whether learning economics makes students more conservative (that is, classically liberal). And the reasons given for a positive answer strike me as good ones. At least, they parallel my own experience. The first time I saw a chart illustrating how supply and demand interact to determine price in a free market was a light-bulb moment, and I commend the experience to all. In short, people who've studied economics recognize that state interference with markets carries with it lots of baggage and uncontrollable consequences. I take the existence of such baggage to be a fact in some strong sense.

While the relevant specialists (economists) tend to be classical liberal in their leanings, the academy as a whole is not. There's an interesting asymmetry in this situation, I think. It's sometimes suggested that academic folk are more liberal (and here I don't mean this in the classical sense) because contemporary liberalism is the truth. And of course, the commonly given answer is that there are other sociological facts (peer pressure) that explain this phenomenon far better than the Truth Hypothesis. So the Truth Hypothesis has little force, the story goes.

The Truth Hypothesis has more force in the case of classical liberalism and economics, though, I think. Classical liberalism isn't a particularly popular view in the academy as a whole. I suppose there's a payoff in the subdiscipline of economics for being a classical payoff, but this is far offset, I imagine, by the costs one pays with respect to the academy as a whole.

I say all of this, of course, with due trepidation. I am no sociologist, nor do I have any advanced training in economics. =)

Coffee


I spent the day in Chicago before heading back to Southern California. This is what I found:


I suppose I'll have to return to this coffee shop when it comes time to freshen up on my early modern texts for my history exams next summer... =)

Abstracta and Women


Eric links to this hilarious essay by Alonzo Church. The central analogy:

Goodman says somewhere that he finds abstract entities difficult to understand. And from a psychological viewpoint it is certainly his dislike and distrust of abstract entities which leads him to propose an ontology from which they are omitted. Now a misogynist is a man who finds women difficult to understand, and who in fact considers them objectionable incongruities in an otherwise matter-of-fact and hard-headed world. Suppose then that in analogy with nominalism the misogynist is led by his dislike and distrust of women to omit them from his ontology. Women are not real, he tells himself, and derives great comfort from the thought -- there are no such things. This doctrine let us call ontological misogyny.

Odd


Google for "Trenton Merricks," and this is the fifth result you'll find.



An odd thesis indeed, that truth supervenes on being Trenton Merricks!

Done


I am finished with my first semester of graduate school. On the assumption that this thing takes me five years, that means I'm ten percent of the way toward a Ph.D. in philosophy.

I hope every semester along the way is as good as this one has been. =)

An Obscure Comic


It's finals week right now. I should have been writing my term papers, but the other day I put this comic together instead. If you think it's funny, then congratulations, you are officially a free will nerd.

A Tension


Good, careful philosophical work often yields quite complex results. The detail found in these results can get in the way of one's ability to see their truth, however, and this is unfortunate. Furthermore, there are features in the analytic philosopher's "philosophy by counterexample" toolbox that almost inevitably bring out this tension.

Philosophers will often begin their work by stating a principle that seems true on reflection, a principle that has a sort of glossy sheen to it, a luminous self-evidence. The object is then to test this principle with counterexamples. Some counterexamples suggest that principle as first stated was false, so a refinement is needed. If the philosopher in question is particularly clever, the principle can be clarified, refined, and caveated to do all the work (as a premise in an argument, say) that it was tasked to do while still avoiding the counterexamples in question.

It's struck me that something rather important might get lost in this process, though: the luminous self-evidence that inspired us to affirm the principle in the first place.

Here's an example, one dealing with the analysis of a concept. Suppose we were wondering about the soundness of an argument for the compatibility of free will and determinism. And a crucial premise of our argument was an analysis of free will, something along the lines of "Someone is free with respect to the fact that p if and only if x is able to make it false that p" (suppose we needed the biconditional for the argument to be sound). There are a lot of things to unpack in this analysis, notably "able" and "make it false." We might describe ability in terms of counterfactuals. But such an account might face the problem of finkish dispositions, so a few extra conditions would have to be added to avoid those counterexamples. Similarly, with "make it false" we might have a causal reading of the locution, or perhaps one involving counterfactuals, or a little bit of both. Counterexamples will threaten all such formulations, no doubt, so a few nips and tucks will be necessary here and there to ensure that our analysis succeeds.

If we are thinking clearly and carefully, our analysis of "someone is free with respect to the fact that p" will become very complicated very fast. And there's something I wonder at this point in the dialectic: is there any reason anymore to think that the analysis is true? Suppose that it seemed obviously correct to us at first that someone was "free with respect to p" just in case she could make p false (a reasonable starting point, I think). After unpacking and clarifying the concepts at play here, however, it may not be nearly so obvious.

If our confidence in the refined analysis is weaker than our confidence in its original statement, it may not have sufficient epistemic "oomph" to serve as a premise in an argument. Now, there's an obvious sense in which the refined analysis does have justification, and lots of it. It has been tried by fire, and subject to intense scrutiny. That it doesn't seem subject to counterexample even after being under the microscope seems to count in its favor. This much is true, but I suspect many want more for their premises. We do not merely want them to not seem false, we want them to seem true. And a premise that is so long and complicated such that no one can hold all parts of the premise before her mind at the same time is one that may lack this feature. Put differently, it's hard to have intuitions about propositions we don't understand.

It seems we are caught between the horns of a dilemma, then. Either our analysis seems true at first glance but is subject to counterexamples on further reflection, or it is refined to the point that it is no longer clear whether it is true anymore, even though it avoids the counterexamples. Neither horn of this dilemma is particularly nice.

Supervenience and Necessity


It's easy to wonder if all global supervenience theses are necessarily true if true at all. And some of them are. But not all. Consider this formulation of global moral supervenience:

P. For any world w, if w and the actual world are exactly alike descriptively, w and the actual world are exactly alike ethically.

It is a contingent matter which world satisfies the definite description, "the actual world." So whether P is true or not depends on which world turns out to be the actual world. Not so if we had used a rigid designator to pick out the actual world (say, "alpha"). For that thesis would be necessarily true if true. It would be true no matter which world turned out to be the actual world. Consider this formulation of supervenience:

Q. For all w and w*, if w and w* are exactly alike descriptively then they are exactly alike ethically.

w and w* are names, rigid designators which pick out their respective worlds no matter which world turns out to be actual. Q is thus necessarily true if true. (Q is Frank Jackson's formulation of global moral supervenience, by the way).

Here's a fun thing to consider. One can make supervenience theses like P even "more contingent" by playing with the quantification over worlds. Here is a weaker ("more contingent") version of P:

R. For any world w where the actual laws of nature obtain, if w and the actual world are exactly alike descriptively, w and the actual world are exactly alike ethically.

R allows that there are worlds exactly alike descriptively (but not ethically) with the actual world. These are far away worlds, though, worlds that don't share our laws of nature. P quantifies over all metaphysically possible worlds, while R quantifies only over nomologically possible worlds. Only on some conceptions of laws will this work, I note (where the laws of nature at a world aren't bundled into its description).

Churchland and Free Will


Patricia Churchland cites an interesting case that bears on both philosophy of mind and free will debates (HT):

A middle-aged Virginian man with no history of any misdemeanour began to stash child pornography and sexually molest his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Placed in the court system, his sexual behaviour became increasingly compulsive. Eventually, after repeatedly complaining of headaches and vertigo, he was sent for a brain scan. It showed a large but benign tumour in the frontal area of his brain, invading the septum and hypothalmus - regions known to regulate sexual behaviour.

After removal of the tumour, his sexual interests returned to normal. Months later, his sexual focus on young girls rekindled, and a new scan revealed that bits of tissue missed in the surgery had grown into a sizeable tumour. Surgery once again restored his behavioural profile to "normal".


This is interesting stuff. One sees hypothetical cases like the above used as intuition pumps about what it takes for someone to be free or morally responsible. But finding an actual case along these lines enhances the force of the intuition pump, I think. Suppose our actions have sufficient causes in the natural order; then they are relevantly alike to the actions of this pedophile. And as such, these actions aren't freely performed (nor are we morally responsible for them). Or so the intuition pump goes.

Incidentally, Churchland is the author of one of the finest jokes found in a professional philosophy journal, I think. She writes (Journal of Philosophy Vol 89, October 1987):

Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing.

An Argument for Determinism


In the free will literature, one often encounters arguments for the thesis that free will is incompatible with determinism. There are also arguments concluding that free will is incompatible with indeterminism. Arguments like the latter, to my knowledge, have not been employed to claim further that determinism is true. But it seems to me that this is a quite natural extension of the project. Consider the following:

1. If determinism is false, then no one ever freely acts.
2. But someone somewhere has acted freely.
3. Therefore, determinism is true.

One might believe (1) on the basis of the so-called Mind argument. If indeterminism is true, then there is a metaphysical wiggle-room, a randomness that rules out free will. So determinism is a necessary condition of free action.

(2) is the minimal free will thesis, and I here register my belief that it is not a Moorean fact. That is, there’s nothing crazy about denying (2). For sure, those who think free will is a necessary condition of moral responsibility and deliberation will find (2) obvious. But for the rest of us, it isn’t. I’m not going to comment on these debates about the relation between freedom and deliberation or responsibility. Rather, I suggest that they can be bypassed. The argument can be reframed so that (2) comes out as a Moorean fact:

4. If determinism is false, then no one is morally responsible for anything.
5. But someone is responsible for something.
6. Therefore, determinism is true.

It seems to me that (5) is more obviously true than (2). I could find myself believing not-(2), but belief in not-(5) is just inconceivable. If it’s a Moorean fact for me that I have hands, then it’s also a Moorean fact for me that I’m a person, and that I have in this life done good and bad things for which I am morally responsible.

So the argument when framed in terms of moral responsibility has at least one advantage over its free will cousin; it’s second premise is more obviously true. But I think the same can be said for its first premise too.

First see that both (1) and (4) are, strictly speaking, false. Indeterminism might be true at a world in virtue of something having nothing to do with us humans, say, one subatomic particle somewhere in the universe swerving indeterministically. And that wouldn’t rule out someone’s acting freely or being morally responsible for something. But we can rephrase. Put the argument in terms of determinism*, which is true just in case all or very nearly all human actions are fixed by the conjunction of the laws and some state of the world at a time. Indeterminism*, then, is true just in case all or very nearly all human actions aren’t fixed by the past and the laws. Or something like that. And indeterminism* is what the Mind argument must really be about, it seems to me.

The Mind argument does more work in supporting (4) than it does for (1). Here’s why. It’s not at all clear what connections an action must have to the past and the laws for it to be freely performed (if any!). But because moral responsibility is connected so closely with the evaluation of agents, it seems to me that an action for which an agent is morally responsible must have connections to the past and the laws (namely, the features of the past having to do with the agent’s beliefs, desires, and character). It’s not clear what these connections are and if they must be deterministic connections, but it is clear that moral responsibility requires them in a way that free will may not.

For the record, I do not think the Mind argument is sound in terms of either moral responsibility or in terms of free will. But it seems to me that if one is at all inclined to buy the Mind argument with respect to free will, one should a fortiori buy it with respect to moral responsibility. Furthermore, the moral responsibility Mind argument puts substantial pressure on its proponent to affirm determinism, more pressure than the free will Mind argument. This is because of the different epistemic statuses of (2) and (5). Denying (2) doesn’t make one crazy in the way that denying (5) does.

Blind Review


There's an interesting discussion about online drafts and their influence on blindness over at Certain Doubts.

Several commentators have noted that it's not so much online drafts but expertise that undermine blindness in the review process. And it doesn't even take all that robust an expertise. I know that in many subfields within free will, I can make a good guess about who wrote any given paper. Both style and substance contribute to this. At the very least, there are groups of authors who tend to cite each other and write in certain ways (even putting substantive issues aside). Take the Florida State crowd; they seem to have a distinct way of thinking and writing about free will. My guess is that no one who knows the literature at all could mistake a paper from one of these philosophers with a paper by someone stationed at at Notre Dame or Riverside, say. In as small a community as free will, no competent reviewer would be without a good guess as to who authored a given paper.

Blind review is an admirable institution. And our best philosophers have always worked within it (David Lewis published almost exclusively in blind reviewed journals, for example). There are certain factors that limit the effectiveness of blind review, however. And these factors are here to stay.

South Park Libertarians


This is a fun interview from Reason with South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. I've always thought these guys were both hilarious and quite insightful too, and one gets a sense of this in the interview.

Why 'Ought' Still Implies 'Can'


I have no argument for the Kantian maxim that 'ought' implies 'can.' But I believe it to be true.

There are three broad strategies philosophers have employed in attacking the maxim. The first involves fairly straightforward counterexamples. The second employs more exotic Frankfurt-style-cases as counterexamples. The third strategy is the most interesting, I think, claiming that the maxim entails the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP), which is itself subject to counterexample by Frankfurt-style-cases.

Defending the maxim against the first of these three attacks is perhaps the easiest task for its advocate. So naturally, I have taken up that task in this paper. In it, I defend one formulation of the maxim against counterexamples by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Company. (This piece is a big chunk out of the paper I wrote for my ethics class this term; I've omitted a rather dry section about the maxim and moral dilemmas/deontic logic).

It's not clear how one can consistently maintain that the maxim is true while also claiming that PAP is false (and subject to counterexample by Frankfurt-style cases). But I do all of this. So suppose defending the coherence of this larger position is something I'll have to be thinking, reading, and writing about over the next couple of months. =)